Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Memories and Thoughts

Silvino García Martínez (Havana, 1944) says that Che Guevara was a good chess player and that he never even thought of letting him win when they happened to be playing each other because the guerrillero would never allow him to do it. However, playing with Fidel Castro was another matter. “Although a fighter, he was less skilled and practiced. Ernesto — also known as Che — had a great chess culture that he brought with him from Argentina and was very passionate about the Royal Game”, says the first Cuban Grandmaster [since Capablanca’s death], a mastermind of Asturian origin who now lives with his wife in the suburb of Ciudad Naranco in Oviedo, and teaches chess to children at a club a couple of hundred meters from his house. [Read more].

Che Guevara is absorbed watching a game by a young Silvino García. Photo: N. Q./Silvino García Martínez Archive.

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